22nd February 2005 Archive

BT has been banging the drum about its new 21st century network (21CN) and how it is set to revolutionise just about everything. The former monopoly's new IP network is "exciting", "radical", and "now", enthused chief evangelist BT Wholesale boss Paul Reynolds on Monday.

When the drugs begin to wear off, and the sun starts to rise, an unnamed music executive shudders at the thought of its existence. In that painful moment of desperation, he wonders, "How could it happen?" "How could that rat write this book?"

Real Software, the maker of the Realbasic application development tool, has raised concerns over Microsoft's IsNot operator patent application, saying that no one should be able to patent fundamental programming operations.

A federal appeals court has denied Lexmark's request to consider reimposing an injunction against a firm that makes components that allow generic replacement ink cartridges to work in Lexmark printers. The ruling by the US Courts of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, leaves Lexmark's lawsuit against Static Control Components in bad shape.

Those members of the neoLuddite Resistance Army who - since learning of the kamikaze SUV, the satanic Renault Vel Satis and the anonymous self-destructing French automobile - have decided to ditch their cars, load their bicycle panniers with explosives and laser pulse rifles and head for the Montana wilderness in expectation of the final ragnarok in which the last remnants of humanity will battle the unholy alliance of homicidal hoovers, belligerent bendy buses and demonic DVD players, are today locking the outer blast doors of their reinforced concrete bunkers and awaiting the arrival of the Lizard Army's latest weapon of mass destruction - the Citroën C4.

Variants of David Blunkett's 'ASBOs for terror' are set to be unveiled today by his successor as Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, under the banner of "control orders". Musing out loud to Jonathan Dimbleby last year Blunkett envisaged a kind of order that would have a wider application to people suspected of being fellow travellers of terror, perhaps engaged (allegedly...) in "acts preparatory to terrorism", including giving financial support, "doing runners, mule jobs", and "perhaps being able to use computer networks" in a way which could pose a threat. Clarke, on the other hand, is now categorising very similar sounding measures as extremely narrow, applying only to a very small group of people.

We at Vulture Central are well aware that skies world-wide are increasingly darkening with black helicopters as conspiracy theorists fall over each other to warn humanity as to multiple threats to peoples' lives and liberty. Make no mistake: they're coming to get you and it's only a matter of time before you are enslaved to the Lizard Army's will.

How much is a website worth? How many Firefox users are there? How long is a piece of string? These, and other puzzlers were given a good going over earlier this week. Our writer warned people not to read to much into download figures of open source software:

The UK's Office of Fair Trading joined forces with government agencies around the world in a co-ordinated assault upon scammers and spammers this week. The OFT joined its partners in the International Consumer Protection Enforcement Network (ICPEN) and signatories to the anti-spam London Action Plan (LAP) on 21 and 22 February to conduct a sweep targeting internet scams.

Software developers are working far fewer hours than they were in 2001. Figures from the US Department of Labour showed the average working week for software developers has fallen from 40.1 hours in 2001 to 36.4 hours now.

Security researchers are developing a method to predict the potential for individual vulnerabilities to become the subject of computer worms. Although Arbor Network's "wormability" formula for predicting worms is far from perfect it allows the firm to give better advice on prioritising security remediation actions and insight into the vulnerabilities likely to be wormed.

A New York teenager has become the first American to be arrested for sending spam messages across IM networks. Anthony Greco, 18, of Cheektowaga, New York, was charged with violations of the CAN-SPAM Act after allegedly sending 1.5m messages punting mortgage refinancing and adult pornography to MySpace.com users in October and November 2004. According to a criminal complaint, Greco created thousands of fraudulent instant messaging accounts on MySpace.com to bombard its users with junk IM messages.

Steve Wozniak has reportedly urged the company he co-founded, Apple Computer, to drop a lawsuit against a beta tester who leaked a version of the company's Tiger operating system. He also says he'll contribute to the defendant's legal fund.

Authorities in Moscow are investigating a Russian website offering cheap music downloads. Allofmp3.com is accused by a music industry group of offering music for sale without authorisation from rights holders in Russia and internationally.